


Bite Chunks Out of Me

by hobbitdragon



Series: Tessellate [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Aftercare, Altered Mental States, Awkward Conversations, Brood Mothers, Darkspawn, Gangbang, Grey Warden Secrets, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Pre-Canon, Rimming, Sad Ending, Situational Dubious Consent, Telepathy, Triple Penetration, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 10:07:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12209070
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hobbitdragon/pseuds/hobbitdragon
Summary: Duncan did a good job preparing Alistair for what was coming next. At least so far as Alistair knew.





	Bite Chunks Out of Me

**Author's Note:**

> This fic will not make much sense unless you have read the one that comes before it, "My Heart Still Thumps, As I Bleed." The title for this fic, as with its predecessor, comes from the song "Tessellate" by Alt-J. 
> 
> It has been a while since I've played this game and my memory is flawed, so please forgive any factual inaccuracies. If you wish to let me know anything I got wrong that's fixable, please do. I don't think I got Alistair's exact type of snark/humor quite right, but I tried. 
> 
> ****VERY SPOILERY CONTENT WARNING****: Alistair gives explicit verbal consent, and does not afterwards regret the sex he has in this fic. That said, it's rough, physically intense sex, and I added the "situational dubious consent" tag because Alistair's mental state is already somewhat altered by the time he gives consent, and it would be difficult or impossible for him to later withdraw that consent if he needed to, and his mental state stays altered throughout the rest of the sex. Further, he is partially experiencing someone else's brutal rape via telepathy, and he is not really aware that this is what's happening to him. Some details of this offscreen rape are briefly described or alluded to in this fic, and as such it may be disturbing or potentially triggering to read. Proceed with care. 
> 
> The "sad ending" tag, meanwhile, refers to canon-typical events and levels of tragedy. But I will say, this isn't where Alistair's story ends, as all of this takes place six months before the events in DA:O, and thus before he meets the playable Warden character.

Meals were the one time of day which drew Wardens together from their places around the keep. It was rare that all the Wardens gathered in a place at once, because some always had to be on watch. Alistair tallied them up in his mind anyway. 

People called the keep Fairbanks Hollow: a small castle tucked away on the northwest side of the Frostbacks. The cold air that blew down from the mountains didn’t stop the local village from growing crops and keeping livestock, and the Wardens did good business with them. 

The food in the Wardens was much better than what Templar recruits got. That had always been bland and sparse, given out in uniform portions regardless of one’s size, and Alistair had been known for begging leftovers from the smaller recruits. The Mothers said that the blandness was to keep the mind focused on the Maker rather than the physical pleasures of plate and table, but Alistair figured it was because there had been a lot of mouths to feed in the Highever Circle and the Mothers weren’t about to waste money on any seasoning other than salt. 

Among the Wardens, though, there was  _ so much _ food to go around. There was always butter and fresh-baked bread, whole potatoes cooked in their skins, stews made of meat and cream and oats and barley, meat roasted upon spits and served still hot, gravy made with marrow and flour, and fruit preserves and honey for after. And when Alistair devoured his meals and then took second and third helpings, his fellow Wardens never reprimanded him for gluttony. Instead they laughed, saying that the Joining took some Wardens this way, and pushed more food toward him. Even within a fortnight of his Joining, Alistair found his limbs filling out with heavier muscle. 

And as Alistair ate, he watched the other Wardens, picturing what he knew was to come. 

There was Hedge, a massive warrior in his mid forties. Hedge had been married before becoming a Warden, and he still wore the thin veridium band on his finger. It stood out, glimmering green on his dark brown skin. He was soft-spoken, words chosen careful and slow as though each mattered, and he was gentle to Alistair.

There was also Nedrade. There were only two elves among the Wardens Alistair had met so far, and Nedrade was one of them. He had come from Orlais originally, as his accent made plain, and the others implied that Nedrade had a criminal record there. Alistair knew only that Nedrade mumbled when he spoke at all, that he fought with twin daggers that never left his sides, and that he smiled seldom. But when Nedrade did smile, it spread all the way out to his long ears, which moved in response to his expressions. 

Nedrade almost never went anywhere without Mags, a human mage so tall and thin that the veins and tendons of his forearms showed clear through his skin. Mags was also the palest person Alistair had ever seen, with hair of such a light reddish-blond that even his eyelashes were white. He burned in five minutes of direct sunlight, and as a result never went anywhere without a wide-brimmed hat. Alistair wasn’t sure what the relationship was between Nedrade and Mags, but they were damn near inseparable, and always sat so close to each other that their shoulders and thighs touched. 

Gregor sat nearby, morosely nursing at a pint of ale. The water here was safe, taken direct from snowmelt coming down the mountain, but Gregor apparently came from somewhere with ‘Mire’ in the title where the water was so foul that no one drank it un-boiled and instead stuck to wine or beer. Gregor said he had never gotten used to drinking water and it still tasted wrong to him. But he rarely became drunk and he was tidy in his drinking, neatly patting his mouth with the kerchief he always seemed to have around. And he groomed his beard often, too, with a little comb he kept tucked away beside his kerchief. Alistair wasn’t sure why Gregor always looked so hangdog; maybe his face was just built that way. 

Gregor’s closest companion was a scowling dwarf named Kybard. Alistair had at first thought Kybard was female, since he wasn’t sure how one determined which sex a dwarf was. But when Alistair had at first addressed Kybard as such, that had earned him a vicious glare and a curling lip, and Gregor had made frantic ‘no’ gestures at Alistair over Kybard’s head. So Alistair had settled into the conclusion that Kybard was  _ not _ female. 

The second elf Grey Warden was Niven, who was as undersized as he was deadly. Alistair had sparred with Niven once, on the first day after Alistair’s recovery from the fever of his Joining. Niven fought with two short staves, one in each hand, and his non-threatening choice of weapons combined with his diminutive size meant that Alistair had assumed the elf would be no match for him. But Niven had not only disarmed Alistair faster than he’d ever been disarmed since learning to fight properly, but then proceeded to flip Alistair into a chokehold. And he’d done it not once or twice but ten times in a row, till Alistair’s neck bruised and he begged off practice for the rest of the day. But Niven was also sweet and giggly, a charming young man a year younger than Alistair himself. Alistair liked him immediately. 

With Niven went Cabhan and Faolan, cousins who had Joined together and miraculously both managed to survive. They were both somber and religious, and reminded Alistair strongly of the older Templars from the Highever Circle, even though neither had yet reached thirty. They were heavyset, blocky men, with freckled faces and brown hair. 

Then there was Brego, a soft-bodied anxious man with a shaved head, shaky hands, and a bizarre collection of inked markings on his skin. He never sat still, one leg always twitching and thumping, one hand always tapping out a rhythm on his staff or the table or anything nearby. He was one of the most powerful elemental mages Alistair had ever met, able to freeze a practice dummy solid with no more than a curl of one finger or a huff of breath. He had been another survivor from Alistair’s own Joining, and Brego was just starting to be trained into fighting shape. Alistair had no idea what Brego had been doing before becoming a Warden, but he couldn’t go up a single flight of stairs without losing his breath. 

The third Warden mage Alistair met was Angus, an older man who had Joined only a few years before. His silver-white hair and kind face somehow intimidated Alistair--or maybe it was the fact that Angus was obviously a blood mage. His hands, arms, legs, and chest were all criss-crossed over and over with hundreds of thin white marks, with fresher, pinker marks layered over them from more recent wounds. There were even a few scars on his face. Angus was never anything other than polite to Alistair or anyone else, but that did little to assuage Alistair’s trepidation. Angus was a sign of how very different standards were among the Wardens, if a blood mage could walk about freely advertising his craft and still be respected. 

And those were merely the ten Alistair knew best aside from Duncan. There were thirty-two in the keep. The large number, kept all in such an isolated outpost, had baffled Alistair until he learned that a mere five miles away from the keep (thankfully on the opposite side of it from the town) lay an entrance to the Deep Roads. With a Deep Roads entrance so near, Wardens were always needed, and always in numbers. 

As they ate and laughed and trained together, Alistair watched, and thought. Sometimes his breath came short with a mixture of anticipation and dread, knowing that soon--any day now, if Duncan’s estimate was correct--he and they would all….they would….

Alistair lost his words when the thoughts overtook him. He’d gone to Duncan every night after that first one, ostensibly for practice. But truthfully it was because a stirring had taken up residence in his gut, a need that spread out and down through his limbs and left him craving and desperate. The morning after the first time with Duncan, Alistair had tried to satisfy himself alone, but not even after three climaxes in rapid succession had he felt anything near to satiated. The closest he came was with Duncan. 

Alistair felt, too, the others watching him. Not just Alistair, though; Brego, too, as the others wondered whom their focus would be upon. The eyes of the other Wardens followed them with a considering gaze, and Alistair knew, now, exactly what they were thinking. Just as he knew that Brego had no need to worry. 

The longer the waiting went on (though truthfully, it had only been a few days) the more Alistair knew it. He wished, then, that any of the Wardens had been women, because that would have been easier for him. With a swell of pride he knew he could satisfy a woman, now; he was at no risk of being unable to sustain a cockstand long enough to be of service. But with men….with  _ so many _ men….

_ Not all of them will partake, _ Alistair reminded himself.  _ It won’t be all thirty-two. Duncan said only twenty, at the most. But Maker, that’s still so many.  _

Their gazes moved over him all the time, him and Brego, because some were still uncertain who it would be. But fewer and fewer eyes lingered on Brego, and more and more upon Alistair. They were beginning to feel it too, he thought, that he would be the one around whom they’d gather. They moved around him like wary moths to a vulnerable flame.

One night as Alistair cleaned and polished his armor and sword, a knock at the armory door startled him. When he looked up, Duncan stood there, his expression serious. 

“It will be tonight, Alistair,” he stated, and did not have to be more specific. “Can you feel it?”

“Yes,” Alistair murmured, eyes dropping to the stone floor. “Yes, I can, I will be--”

Something in the air shifted between one heartbeat and the next, like a popping sensation within his mind. It felt like when air was forced into his ears, but all over, leaving him tight-skinned and gasping. Frightened, he looked to Duncan for an explanation. For the briefest moment he expected to see someone else there, someone he hated. But Duncan merely nodded at him. 

“There it is. Come with me.”

The hallways passed in a blur as Alistair panted, trying to drag in more air. It was like his mind had split into two--he was terrified as if every step took him closer to death, and yet it was  _ Duncan _ at his side, and he knew Duncan would take care of him through this. The floor seemed to move strangely under Alistair, spongy as though it were living flesh. When Duncan wrapped an arm around Alistair to prevent him from falling, Alistair whimpered, his skin buzzing with oversensitivity. Dimly he realized they were going down into the subterranean levels of the keep, and the thought filled his mind that  _ down meant danger _ , the dark where he could not escape. But his skull pounded, throbbing like a great heartbeat, and he could do nothing but follow. 

By the time they reached the room Duncan was looking for, Alistair could barely stand. As though through a haze he took in racks of candles along the walls, padded training mats on the floor, and soft oiled leather spread over them. Duncan lowered him to the mats, where Alistair knelt, gasping. 

“Here, lad, I have you, I have you. You’ll be fine, let me just--”

Duncan’s hands were at his chest, then, unwinding the thick scarf Alistair wore to keep out the mountain chill. Alistair didn’t dare look anywhere else, kept his eyes fixed on Duncan’s face--if he looked anywhere but at Duncan, he was afraid of what he’d see. Shapes in the darkness, he thought, bright white fangs and blood, blood, blood. But there were many candles lit, the scent of beeswax thick in the air--wax and oilskin and nothing worse. 

More hands unlaced the ties at his wrists, his waist, but Alistair buried his face in Duncan’s belly and he didn’t see who else was there. The room was so warm from the candles that when Alistair’s skin was bared naked to the air, he sighed with relief, breath hot on his face against the familiar linen of Duncan’s tunic. 

“Alistair, listen to me. Do you still want this? You have to answer me, after this it won’t be easy to stop. You can still refuse, but it has to be now. Do you--”

“Yes,” Alistair begged, interrupting Duncan. The heartbeat throbbed at the back of his skull. “Yes, yes, please. I’ve thought of nothing else for days. I will be good.”

Duncan pulled him up by his hair, then, still gentle but firm of grip. Their mouths met, and someone’s hands ran down Alistair’s back, pulling at his hips so his back arched. 

“The boy knows what’s happening, does he?” asked a deep voice behind Alistair, and it surprised him--he hadn’t expected words. What he’d expected, he couldn’t say, but after a second he placed the voice as Hedge. “You told him?”

“Yes,” Duncan stated, pulling away from Alistair’s mouth only far enough to get out the confirmation. Alistair felt the breath of it over his lips, smelled anise and the warm grassy scent of a clean mouth. “He knows. I’ve been telling him all week.”

The man’s mouth was so soft--like meat, fresh good meat, that would burst under his teeth if he bit down and be slick on his tongue. But no, Alistair thought, that’s not right--

“Thank the Maker for small mercies.” Something light and rough trailed over Alistair’s lower back, and then a soft mouth pressed to his spine.  _ Hedge’s hair,  _ Alistair thought,  _ that’s his locs on my back-- _

Moments later, the plush kisses turned over Alistair’s tailbone. He flinched--surely Hedge did not mean to kiss him  _ there _ , it had to be a mistake, but Alistair could barely think over the pounding that echoed through his bones now, pulse after pulse. Strong hands held him by the thighs as a wet tongue curled out and straight into Alistair. 

He jerked at the sensation, so much tenderer than a finger. Shame and shock rolled through him, heating his skin all along his face and neck. The thunderous rhythm receded, and in its place Alistair couldn’t think of anything but the wedding band on Hedge’s finger, and what it meant to have him here, like this, kissing Alistair in such a place.  _ Thank the Maker I washed this afternoon, at least,  _ Alistair thought, and then he thought of nothing, coherence emptying out of him as though a vein had been cut. 

The feeling of a mouth at each end overwhelmed him. Too much soft skin and rough scratch of beard, too much sweet push of tongue, as though Duncan and Hedge were kissing straight through him. He throbbed to hardness between them, whimpering into Duncan’s mouth until Duncan pushed him away and down. The room spun, deep and dark and cold, below the touch of any light--and yet there were candles everywhere in here and he sweated so that droplets ran down his arms and sides--

“Now, lad,” someone growled, and when Alistair blinked, a big shape stood over him, and he was afraid. But it was only Duncan, with an erection Alistair knew well. The hand in his hair guided him forward, and all he had to do was open his mouth. One of Duncan’s hands curled under Alistair’s chin, the other cupping his skull, holding him in place as Duncan pushed in. He stopped at the opening of Alistair’s throat, keeping his thrusts short, unlike what he did when they were alone. 

The room twisted then, as though Alistair had stepped off solid ground and into open air. He was  _ afraid _ , he had to bite down, to stop this from happening! But they would  _ hurt _ him if he fought--

\--And then reality reasserted itself, and Alistair remembered to cover his teeth. He was glad it was Duncan first, again. It ought to be Duncan who began this, as he’d begun it in his office days ago. 

Hedge breathed heavily behind him, breath running cool between Alistair’s legs as he withdrew. The sharp smell of elfroot filled the air, then, stinging Alistair’s nose and making his eyes water--or perhaps that was Duncan, pushing hard against Alistair’s tongue as Alistair tried to arch enough to take him. Two fingers slipped into Alistair and bent slow inside him, slick and careful, and Alistair heard the click of the door latch as it opened, the shuffle of footsteps. 

_ They can’t see me like this, _ he panicked, terrified of being caught this way between two men, before he realized that anyone coming to this room was here for  _ him _ . He didn’t quite dare open his eyes to see who else was here, though, and he hadn’t even picked out faces of the three in the room to begin with. 

It was better not to look, he thought, better not to know what he couldn’t escape--but hadn’t he been waiting eagerly for this all week? He’d  _ wanted _ this, and these were men he trusted with his life, bound to him by blood.

Hedge pushed in a third finger, Alistair’s body opening for it easily, so easily. An electric tingle went up his spine, spreading down over his shoulders and thighs. He knew he was hard, cock hanging heavy against his thigh, and that was….strange, as though his own body were suddenly unfamiliar to him. But he could barely think of it between the press of Duncan and Hedge inside him. When Hedge’s hand withdrew and something thicker took its place, Alistair groaned through his nose, the itch that had lived under his skin for days finally subsiding. 

_ Second person I’ve ever fucked, _ a distant part of him noted, and then the thought vanished below the stretch. For a brief second he ached, resisting the intrusion, before his body came to its senses and the discomfort passed.  _ Doom, doom, doom, _ the heartbeat was enormous, subsuming his own with its slow and inexorable pace. Something breathed against Alistair’s shoulder blades, and he expected a bite, but instead the one behind him started to thrust, falling into a rhythm with the thing in his mouth--with  _ Duncan _ . Alistair could barely breathe, even with Duncan being measured and careful and not pushing into his throat. It was so much, his cock ached against his thigh, and already Alistair thought he could finish if he just touched himself--

There were more shapes around him in the darkness. The bright candle lights? He heard voices, someone speaking, but he couldn’t understand words. There was only the heartbeat. 

Something pushed into Alistair alongside the thing inside him--Hedge, that was Hedge, who else would it be?--and Alistair stopped thinking about who else was in the room, attention focused on not choking as he clamped down and couldn’t help swallowing at the same time. A finger or a thumb, by the feel of it, but fog crept in at the corners of his vision--the sensations were at once sharp and definite, holding him at the brink of climax, yet somehow dulled as though he were drunk. When the finger pushed deeper he stretched, he took it, he took more, and then salt flooded on his tongue and details simply dropped away. 

He was empty, shapes squirming behind him. Hands moved him and he obeyed. There was something under him, small fingers digging into his waist, pressing his hips down onto a slim, easy thing that nudged him inside where he was sensitive. Then something else pushed at him there, bigger, and he spread open around it till the fullness eclipsed everything, even the push of something else into his mouth. He covered his teeth--he must not bite, he knew this though he could not have said why--but all he could think of was the movement inside him, slick and tight and so, so much. He ached, the pleasure of it dense and overpowering, rolling through him in pulses, in time with the great heartbeat. 

Time passed. There was salt on his tongue, running down his chin and neck, wet like blood. He knew the taste of blood, of meat, of whatever this was, and he swallowed to get it down. Sometimes they moved him to allow someone--something--to get under him, but all he knew was the fullness, the push and slide into him, the way he choked when they pushed too hard into his mouth. Sometimes it hurt, the intrusion sharp and hard and huge where he was vulnerable, and he wondered if they would cut him open to make more room. But even as he thought of it, the pain was distant and brief, washed away by the singing of blood through enormous veins. 

Sometimes a ripple passed through him, a contraction of bliss or revulsion. He could no longer tell which, the meat of him reacting to the constant push inside. He wanted it, that much he knew, but his arms weakened, strength sapped by all the salt. He shook, a body afraid or worked to exhaustion, but still he took and took and--

Something popped, splitting open like thin skin. The candle-light pierced into his eyes, and he wondered where he’d been that had been so dark. He turned his face away from the soft body in front of him, his jaw on fire with prolonged use, and gasped in air as though he were drowning. 

“Finally,” someone said, a familiar voice. He knew who that was, Alistair just couldn’t find a name. 

Behind him, someone moved, and all at once Alistair became aware of himself. Of the ragged, bruised feeling up inside him, the roughness of his throat. He couldn’t help the cry that escaped him as one of the shapes inside him withdrew, the sensation knife-sharp where he was so raw. 

“Easy, lad, it’s all right, I’m here. Relax, I know you’re sore. Come here, lean into me--” Warm skin and soft hair pressed against Alistair’s face, smelling of anise and sweat, damp enough that  Alistair’s cheek slid. A sob tore out of him as something else moved in him, pulling away from where it had been pressed in deep. “--There you go, that’s the second one out. Let him get out from under you.”

Alistair’s limbs wouldn’t cooperate. Someone pushed his leg aside, and he thought he should look to see who because surely he ought to know who’d been in him like that. Names and faces were something one ought to know. But he couldn’t find the energy to turn his head and lift his body away from where he was being held. 

“Get me the elfroot, the salve and the potion--thank you. Alistair, listen to me lad. You need to drink this, it will help. Sit up, just a little.”

Mostly Alistair did not sit up. Mostly he allowed himself to be pushed up, and when something pressed against his bottom lip he opened his mouth for it. It was as automatic as breathing, now, that when something touched his mouth he opened up to let it in. He was almost surprised when it was glass instead of skin, and even more shocked by the bright green smell of elfroot that twisted up into his sinuses and made him want to sneeze. He swallowed when it was tipped up into him, the fluid thin and sour on his tongue rather than salty and bitter. Tingles ran down through him, spreading out from his belly till the jagged misery of his jaw faded. In a few moments the pain disappeared. 

“Ulgh,” he said, with what he thought was great eloquence. He meant that syllable to express his exhaustion, the lax torpor of his limbs, and the stickiness he was now noticing all over: his face, his neck and chest, his lower back and belly, the insides of his thighs. When he thought about that stickiness, it was somewhere between revolting and erotic, because he knew exactly what it was. 

Maybe  _ some _ of it was just sweat, or the elfroot-infused slick Hedge had used to open him up. At least a  _ little  _ bit of it had to be that. Alistair blinked down at himself, morbidly curious to see the full extent of the disaster, but the body that greeted him was still somehow a surprise. For a split second he had expected to see a softer belly and thighs, and blood--

Instead there was exactly the kind of mess that would come from taking a room full of men, and in the midst of it, Alistair’s own cock and balls lying soft against his thigh. 

_“Ulgh,”_ Alistair said again, this time with more vehemence.

“I’ll help you wash up, lad. Will you let us put some salve on you? The potion will help some, but this will help more.” Hedge and Niven were seated nearby, where Alistair could see, and they were both cleaning themselves with damp cloths. Alistair assumed by ‘us’ that Duncan meant the other two, since Alistair couldn’t see how many others there were, or who. Alistair nodded his assent. 

It was Niven who did it. He’d managed to pull a shirt on already, so he rolled its sleeves up to dip his tiny fingers into the pot of salve. Alistair lifted his top thigh, giving Niven access, but flinched away at the first touch behind his balls.

Duncan’s hands on Alistair’s shoulder tightened. “Easy, lad, I know you’re sore.”

“Maker’s breath,” Alistair swore, then blew a breath out through his mouth. If it hurt this much now, he couldn’t figure how he’d been enjoying himself so recently, but apparently he had. 

Niven looked anxiously at him, his big wide-set eyes all pinched with concern. “It’s fine,” sighed, and this time when Niven’s hand touched him, Alistair suppressed the flinch. 

It helped that it was only Niven, not someone bigger or older. Alistair made himself take in the details of the elf’s rumpled black hair, the delicate points of his ears, the sunburn he’d gotten a few days ago on a watch shift and which was just starting to peel across his nose and forehead. Niven was clever at coming up with puns and jokes and could do amazing tricks with his staves, making them spin and dance from hand to hand. 

Alistair also had to assume that Niven had fucked him at some point during the evening. And now his fingers, thankfully slim and gentle, were pressing into Alistair, making him feel the way his body couldn’t seem to tighten up anymore, barely mustering a twitch of protest at the entry. The elfroot salve soothed the pain almost immediately, but the pressure still hurt as Niven worked it in. 

“Am I bleeding?” Alistair asked, unsure if he actually wanted the answer. He saw Niven look at Duncan over Alistair’s shoulder, as though asking permission for something. 

“Not really,” Niven answered. “Some blood is normal, after something like this. Nothing to worry about.”

The words were meant to be reassuring, but were really not. Alistair had made himself bleed a few times over the years, overzealous with untrimmed fingernails or whatever object he’d misappropriated for the purpose, so that when he’d finished, whatever he’d put in came out with little smears of red on it. He’d never taken ill from it, and after a while had stopped worrying about it much. But now he couldn’t escape the idea that he was bleeding somewhere, and that he ought to be afraid.

Duncan stroked Alistair’s shoulder, the sensation a strange counterpoint to the movement of the small fingers inside him. And after a few more breaths, the pain of it faded away, so that when Niven withdrew, Alistair felt only tired. 

“It will be easier next time, and the next,” Duncan murmured, still rubbing Alistair’s shoulder with his thumbs. “It’s most overwhelming the first time this happens to a new Warden. You’ll acclimate, though, and next time you’ll be more present, more yourself.” Duncan chuckled then, the movement of it shifting him underneath Alistair. “The last man in your position used to laugh his way through it, by the end. Complained bitterly anytime anything got in his hair, though. He was very vain about his hair.”

“Fussy git,” someone added fondly from behind Alistair. “I miss him.”

Alistair knew that the last Warden who’d done this had died just before Alistair’s arrival at Fairbanks Hollow. He couldn’t very well miss someone he’d never met, but he suddenly felt the absence in the way the other men were tentative with him, unsure how he was handling this and thus shifting around behind him in silence rather than filling the space with talk as was their wont. They were used to that other man, Alistair realized, familiar with  _ him _ in this context and each other  _ with _ him, while Alistair was new and untested and possibly fragile. For the first time Alistair put himself in their shoes, and he wondered if they were afraid of him now, frightened by the possibility that they had been too much. 

This realization steeled Alistair. “Best get me washed, then, before this dries on me,” he stated in what he hoped was a business-like tone, and he rolled off Duncan and onto one trembling arm. The room only spun a little. “The Wardens know how to show a fellow a good time, clearly, but I feel like I could sleep for a year, and I don’t fancy going to bed in all this.”

He felt the room relax, and then there was a great shuffle as others moved, fetching clothes and sorting out shoes and socks. 

Later, clean and wrapped up tight in blankets, having been fed another elfroot potion and some soft bread to settle it in his stomach, he listened to the other Wardens sleep. He tried to hear the great heartbeat again but couldn’t, not even when he strained. There was only Hedge’s low, rasping snore, Brego’s wheezy breathing, and the whistle of air between Niven’s gapped front teeth. 

When dreams took Alistair, though, he was lost in the stench of death, cradling his belly and weeping, weeping in the dark.

 

**

 

The next morning he woke late. When he walked into the mess hall he expected all eyes to turn toward him, but instead there were only the usual cursory glances his way. When Niven gestured him over, Alistair seated himself beside the small elf and across from Cabhan and Faolan.

“So how was it?” Faolan asked as he stabbed a piece of egg and ate it with gusto. “I see you survived, and you look in the bloom of health today. Didn’t even flinch when you sat down.”

Alistair stared at the other man. Somehow he had thought the events of the basement would stay there, be viewed as a topic of conversation unfit for the outside world. But since Faolan was asking, that clearly was not the case--and it implied that neither Faolan nor his cousin had been present last night. Alistair desperately wanted to ask why, but he wasn’t sure if it was allowed. Did they find him unappealing? Did they dislike his inexperience? Or was it simply on religious grounds? Did they judge  _ him _ for succumbing?

“I, uh,” Alistair replied, fumbling for words as his face heated. How was one to describe it? Over breakfast, no less! A late breakfast, true, more like brunch at this point, really, but still. The exact variety of meal didn’t matter, it wasn’t a mealtime topic! If one were to discuss it at all, it was a topic for when there were no candles late at night, when even a familiar voice felt anonymous in the black. Or while walking the walls after sunset and not looking at one another. Not in the sunshine, facing one another, with only a table between them.

“It was….fine,” Alistair concluded after a pause. 

This seemed to be enough for Faolan, who nodded and returned to his repast. Niven, however, looked uncomfortable. 

“You are….well, today? Not hurt, or….” or what, Niven didn’t say, his cheeks flaming as badly as Alistair’s felt like they were doing. Niven looked away, seeming as though he were trying to shrink his already small self. He picked at his food with his fork, pushing it around his plate.

“I am not hurt or distressed,” Alistair offered. And it was true enough; he was mortified that all of his brothers in arms knew this about him, and his memories of the event were muzzy and unfocused, which worried him a bit. But maybe that was usual for Wardens, or for taking that many at once, or something. Could one get drunk off semen? Point was, if the others weren’t going to make a scandal out of it and wanted to treat it as life as usual, who was Alistair to complain? If he got to behave like the most wanton slut imaginable every few weeks and be fucked till he couldn’t come anymore or even stand on his own….well.  Up until last week, he’d worried he would die a virgin, too awkward to ever win his way into bed with someone. That clearly wasn’t the case anymore. And if he ever saw the Revered Mother again, he’d have the satisfaction of knowing he’d gone and made every nasty rumor about the Wardens into a truth, and probably done it beyond what even her devious and judgmental little mind could dream. 

And Duncan had been so good to him, before and after, so that it warmed Alistair to think of it. Surely it meant something? Duncan cared about him, that much was clear, even if the older man wasn’t possessive of Alistair. Couldn’t be, really, given the circumstances, but there had been such tenderness. 

Alistair elected not to mention the nightmares. He’d been having them almost every night since the Joining, and the ones last night had been no worse than the others. 

“Good,” Niven replied, face softening. His eyes darted up to meet Alistair’s, and a brief smile turned up one corner of his mouth. “Good, that’s good to hear. Will you spar with me later?”

A normal request, between soldiers. Could it be as easy to return to normalcy as that?

Nodding his assent, Alistair wished he could  _ remember _ Niven among all the others. Had he been near the beginning or the end? Above or below Alistair or standing beside? How had he tasted, smelled,  _ felt _ inside Alistair? Had he been rough or gentle? Was his cock proportionate to the rest of him? Had Alistair come for him, because of something Niven had done, or had Alistair already been beyond that and into the haze of pure sensation by the time Niven had taken his turn? Alistair only remembered him at the end with the salve. 

The questions could not possibly be asked. They were beyond rude, beyond any level of etiquette Alistair had ever been taught or imagined needing. Probably rules did not even exist for this, because who beyond a few very particular Wardens would ever need such guidance?

Arl Eamon had kept in his library a book of form letters, made to assist a man in the Arl’s position with responding to the post as quickly and correctly as possible. Alistair had glanced through the book once--there had been letters for when your daughter made a disadvantageous connection with a man, for when a tenant on your land was having a dispute with a neighbor, for when someone above you in station gave you a gift and you needed to express your gratitude. Ways to phrase oneself in any possible situation, it seemed. 

There were no letters for this. Alistair made himself try to imagine one, though. 

_ Dear Sirs, thank you for your honorable service to Thedas, and most especially for your selfless commitment to giving your all. You have gone above and beyond the call of duty to make a significant contribution to the sexual education of your newest member (heh, member) and acquitted yourselves with vigor and zeal. I look forward to receiving your service again in the future. Sincerely and with great pleasure, Warden Alistair.  _

He couldn’t help a smile as he rose from breakfast and followed the others out into the yard, where he sparred for the remainder of the morning. Other than a few jokes about his slow reflexes and sore muscles, no one mentioned the basement again. It was as though it had been a fever dream from which he had awoken merely tired. Or a completely ordinary event such as being posted to this watch rotation or that one; something to gripe or boast about briefly but otherwise unremarkable. 

That evening, however, Duncan sent word to Alistair, requesting his presence in the officers’s quarters at nine PM. Unsure what the meeting might be for, and thinking of all the other evenings he had spent in Duncan’s office or quarters this past week, Alistair made sure to use the water closet, wash carefully, and shave before he went. 

He seated himself upon Duncan’s spare chair when requested, staring hard at the older man, trying to pick out what this meeting was. Another tryst? A debriefing?

“I am sure others have asked you this today, but how are you, Alistair?” Duncan asked, leaning back into his chair to regard Alistair with a weather eye. Alistair flushed at this show of concern, and the fact of having been asked here to receive it. His shirt itched on his overheated skin.  

“I am well enough for Niven to have embarrassed me in the training yard again. I’d swear those sticks of his were mage staffs, because some of the things he does makes no sense otherwise. It’s unfair! And I attended my scheduled watch shift this afternoon. As usual, my patrol of the walls was very boring. I spotted twenty-six squirrels, a group of geese, the mail coach, and the cook’s dog, who escaped again. It made water upon the gate.”

This earned him a smile from Duncan, and Alistair congratulated himself. 

“I know it is your way to make light of things, Alistair, but I am asking in earnest after your wellbeing. I have engaged with a number of men in your position over my decades with the Wardens, and it takes each differently. Some were affected for days afterward, in ways that had nothing to do with physical hurt.”

This line of questioning made Alistair as uncomfortable as it did pleased at Duncan’s attentiveness. So Alistair shrugged, determined to seem collected and hale. 

“I guess I could tell you I spent the day languishing and wishing for a horde of Darkspawn to take us all, but that would be a lie, ser. And the Revered Mother taught me never to lie. Honesty is a virtue, you know.”

“Decorum and respect for your elders are apparently virtues they didn’t teach at Highever,” Duncan sighed, but one corner of his mouth was turned up as he said it. 

“I’d say I paid you a great deal of respect last night. And the night before, and the one before that, and the one before--”

“Yes, Alistair,” Duncan interrupted him with a firm stare. But Alistair was flush with memories of Duncan’s hair, soft on Alistair’s face, and so he pushed on. 

“If you wish a demonstration of my respect, or to teach me a lesson in decorum, we could do that now. You have quite a serviceable hearthrug, good on the knees.”

But Duncan only sighed and turned away, and something in the way he held himself carefully upright in his chair made Alistair stop breathing. 

“Before your first time with the Wardens as a group, it seemed both kindest and most expedient to ensure you had some prior experience. By its very nature, being the focus of that particular event is overwhelming, and it would have been a disservice to refuse you anything that would make it easier. But it would be careless for me as your commanding officer to continue with you as we have.”

Alistair’s body felt very far away, and yet despite its distance, he felt gooseflesh crawl up his limbs while his stomach tried to evict dinner from the premises. 

“But--ser, surely--”

“I will not change my stance on this. It is not in your best interests for us to continue.” Duncan’s voice was so calm, gentle and measured as it always was. 

_ You’re wrong, _ Alistair thought.  _ How can you be so wrong? You’re not allowed to be this wrong. Please stop. _

“Did I do something you dislike?” Alistair asked instead, desperate. His voice came out creaky and fractured, as though he were still fourteen. “If you wish me to be different, surely you can teach me--”

At this Duncan turned away from the fireplace, fixing Alistair with a soft stare. 

“It is not that, lad.” His tone was so soft, surely something better had to follow those words? A retraction of what had come before, hopefully. “Do not use this to doubt yourself. Educating you was a an honor and a pleasure.”

“Then you only did it because I wanted it,” Alistair concluded, feeling as though the chair beneath him had vanished and left only a great empty space into which he was rushing down, down, down. “Did you even enjoy it at all?”

At this Duncan smiled, and for a brief moment Alistair hated him for it. Hated him for being able to feel any amusement at a time like this. Even his hair was neatly pulled back from his face, everything about him ordered and in its place. He should not be allowed to be so composed when Alistair felt as though he were coming apart an inch at a time. 

“Of course I enjoyed it. When I said it was an honor and a pleasure, I meant both words.”

“So why stop?” Alistair begged, gesturing with his hands and knowing, with deep mortification, that they were trembling and sweating. “If it’s really so pleasurable and honorable, then surely--”

“I will only be able to continue with the Wardens for perhaps another year, Alistair,” Duncan said, the quiet words cutting through anything else Alistair might have said. “You are attached to me, I can see that. So I will not do you the disservice of allowing that attachment to go further, thus making my impending departure harder on you. It is better this way.”

_ No, _ Alistair told him silently.  _ It’s worse. This way I will miss you for a whole year, even before you go. _ But he didn’t wish to seem insubordinate, or--even more intolerable--desperate and childish. So he said nothing, and stared into the fire, wishing only to leave the room.

“Is there anything else you wish to say to me before you’re dismissed?” Duncan asked, his voice still infuriatingly kind. 

A hundred things rushed through Alistair’s mind then:  _ I’ll do anything you ask if you just let me continue to be with you, How dare you do this to me, I think I love you.  _ But what actually came out was, 

“I’m King Maric’s bastard.”

In the corner of his eye, Alistair saw Duncan freeze. Then, slowly, lift one hand to rub his face. Alistair already wished he could take the words back, he hadn’t meant to ever tell Duncan this, but it wasn’t as though it could make tonight any worse, really. And maybe Duncan deserved to know. 

“I appreciate that you are disappointed and maybe hurt, but that is a joke in very poor taste.”

“It’s not a joke,” Alistair choked out. He wished it were. “I’m Maric’s bastard. With a serving girl, they told me. Arl Eamon raised me, since he and I are technically related, until I was sent away to the Templars. The Revered Mother knew--it’s part of why she was so especially snippy with you for recruiting me rather than any of the others. Secrets of the Order and all that, there’s a lot the Chantry doesn’t want bandied about, but I think also she fancied having the king’s half-brother under her command.”

“Maker’s balls,” Duncan swore, and the language startled Alistair into looking at the older man. Duncan  _ never _ used oaths. “This had better not be a joke, Alistair.”

“It’s not. You can write to Arl Eamon to confirm it if you wish.”

“Things of this nature shouldn’t be put down in print, you never know who might read them,” Duncan said, and then sighed deeply. “So you’re telling me that I sodomized the man who’s second in line for the throne, thus deflowering him, before allowing him to be further sodomized by most of the Wardens under my command.”

Alistair couldn’t prevent the broken laugh that escaped him at that. It was funny, hearing it said that way, except for the part where it was horrible, too. And having his relationship to the throne spoken of by Duncan made Alistair want to crawl out of his own skin and not come back. 

“I’m not in line for the throne. King Cailan’s doing just fine, and I’m sure Anora will produce an heir anytime now. I just exist, is all.”

“You even look like him,” Duncan murmured, as though to himself, and then closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. “Well, thank you for your honesty. Knowing that before now would have been--”

“Would you have done things differently?” Alistair demanded, because all the sudden he needed to know. “Treated me a breakable artifact? Refused to touch me, or kept me from doing what I did last night, even though the whole keep felt that it was meant to happen?”

Duncan stared back at him. Alistair took in the lines around Duncan's eyes, the grave downward curve of his mouth, the silver in his hair, and the way his hands were even now back on the armrests of the chair, giving an impression almost of ease. If one didn’t look at his face, he still looked calm.

“No,” Duncan admitted at last. “I could not have kept you or the others from it, if you had wished it to be so. And I would not have sent you down there as a complete innocent, either.”

That was, Alistair supposed, the most he could ask. He swallowed, then looked up at the ceiling till the prickling in his eyes receded. 

“Permission to be dismissed, ser?” he got out, and was proud of how the words were almost steady. 

“Granted,” Duncan said, a little too quickly. Alistair twisted up out of his chair, unable to stay in a room where he’d slept with Duncan for a moment longer. 

“Alistair,” Duncan called, just as Alistair had been about to shut the door. He thought, briefly, of slamming it and pretending not to have heard. But instead he held the heavy iron handle, and stood to attention. 

“Yes, ser?”

“You deserve care and attention, lad. Do not believe otherwise simply because I am not able to give it to you.”

The anger buzzing in Alistair’s chest like a swarm of bees abruptly went silent, and he sagged around its absence. Then he nodded, and pulled the door closed quietly behind him. 

**Author's Note:**

> In case this ending is too distressing for you, I'll just say that if I ever manage to write this fic's sequel, its title could reasonably be "Alistair Spreads His Legs For A Woman This Time."
> 
> The book of form letters that Alistair mentions Arl Eamon owning is a real book which existed in the 1700s. I sadly cannot remember the exact name or publication date of the book, though.


End file.
